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Chair
Earth Victorian-style chair.]] A chair is a piece of furniture which is designed for a humanoid figure to rest upon and therefore relieve pressure of the legs and back. Chairs are of such practical design that this furniture piece has evolved in nearly every known humanoid culture across the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Styles Chairs come in a wide variety of size and design. In the 19th century on Earth, upper-class citizens typically had elegant looking plush chairs about their residences. ( ) The term "chair" may also refer to the head of an organization or a position of prestige. The Lucasian Chair is considered a position of some importance at Earth's Cambridge University. ( ) The prevalence of chairs in most every humanoid culture can perhaps be attributed, in some portion, to Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development. On 892-IV, a society identical to 20th century Earth had developed (albeit where the Roman Empire never fell) with this parallel world including such common Earth furniture items as lamps, chairs, and tables. ( ) Onboard most starships, chairs are common for the crews to sit in and perform their duties over long hours of watch. At the center of every starship, there is often a command chair, for the commanding officer of the ship to direct shipboard operations. Command chairs of this nature have been seen on starship types of nearly every spacefaring species to include the Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Tamarians, and the starships of the Federation Starfleet. The Borg are an exception to this, since Borg cubes have no recognizable bridge or command center and Borg drones use alcoves to regenerate. Chairs are therefore impractical for the Borg. ( ) The Dominion also do not use chairs on board their starships, something a Human crew noticed almost immediately when operating a stolen Jem'Hadar fighter. ( ) In at least one case, a chair has been used in a scientific experiment. In 2369, Commander Data attempted to use a transporter to beam a chair off of a holodeck. It was later discovered that the experiment itself was flawed since the transporter being used was a holodeck simulation and, as no one had ever attempted to beam a chair off a holodeck, there was no frame of reference for the holodeck simulation to access. ( ) Interrogation chair Chairs have also occasionally been used as instruments of torture. When Jonathan Archer and Travis Mayweather were being held by the Tandarans, T'Pol and Tucker discussed their legal rights. T'Pol said that the Vulcans could send an arbitrator, but Tucker was so surprised that he thought the electric chair, an early form of punishment on Earth, would be better suited to them. ( ) In 2154 Soval was directly beamed into an interrogation chair on board the Andorian starship Kumari, where he was tortured, including the use of a neuro-synaptic field which lowered his emotional barrier. ( ) In 2269, former Fleet Captain Garth, while an inmate at the criminal asylum on Elba II, took over the facility including the therapy equipment used to rehabilitate prisoners. Garth modified a rehabilitation chair, which normally was a painless device designed to relax patients, into a torture device that was "exquisitely painful". Both James T. Kirk and Donald Cory were forced to sit in the torture chair while Garth tormented them. ( ) Doctor Tristan Adams also was known for turning medical therapy equipment into torture devices. In 2266, Doctor Adams developed the neural neutralizer which was a device designed to empty a person's mind of harmful thoughts while they sat in a chair in a special room. Doctor Adams modified the neutralizer to not only empty a person's mind but fill it with other thoughts of his own design. Simon Van Gelder was an early victim of the neural neutralizer with Captain James Kirk also tortured in the neutralizer chair by Doctor Adams. ( ) Chairs used for torture is not only confined to Human activity, as the Romulans typically use torture as a means to an end. In 2367, Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge was taken aboard a Romulan warbird, strapped into a torture chair, and his VISOR implants fed several images of "horrors" in an effort to brainwash him. ( ) Memorable quotes involving chairs "Mr. Spock, what happened?!?" "The occipital area of my head seems to have impacted with the arm of the chair." : - Spock ( ) "The chair is no longer painless. It is in fact, ''exquisitely painful." : - Fleet Captain 'Garth' ( ) "''Just have your Klingon servant bring us some chairs!" : - DaiMon Goss ( ) "And you may have...''MY chair." : - 'Jean-Luc Picard' ( ) ''"Captain, is there something wrong with your chair?" : - Montgomery Scott to James T. Kirk ( ) "Get out of my chair!" : - Picard to Q ( ) Other Star Trek uses * Star Trek: Captain's Chair External link * Category:Technology